Updated News

Just a quick update on my third observation:

I had my review today and the words "awesome job" were used again. There was also a "great job" thrown in--just for good measure. It was my early Christmas present! YAY!

In other news, Dan's store will only be open for four more days. Then he'll have a lot more time free to devote to spoiling the princess in the manner in which she'd like to become accustomed.

One Word

My friend Shelly sent me this a while back. I sent it back to her that day, but I've forgotten all my answers since then so I redid it. The idea is to answer all the questions using one word and ONLY one word. It's harder than it looks!

1. Where is your cell phone? purse

2. Significant other? schmoopie

3. Your hair? growing

4. Your mother? knitting

5. Your father? garage

6. Your favorite thing? husband

7. Your dream last night? work

8. Your drink? diet

9. Your dream goal? happiness

10. The room you're in? mom's

11. Your fear? loss

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? employed

13. Where were you last night? here

14. What you're not? skinny

15. Muffins? sure

16. One of your wish list items? employment

17. Where you grew up? Hendersonville

18. The last thing you did? television

19. What are you wearing? pajamas

20. Your TV? on

21. Your pet/pets? Lily

22. Your computer? friends

23. Your life? busy

24. Your mood? content

25. Missing someone? Grace

26. Your car? Camry

27. Something you're not wearing? shoes

28. Favorite Store? Goodwill

29. Your summer? hot

30. Your favorite color? pink

31. When is the last time you laughed? today

32. Last time you cried? yesterday

See if you can do it!

Grateful

I was reminded tonight, as I snuggled on the couch under a down comforter with my HEALTHY kids watching Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, that I'm pretty darn lucky. Even if the economy has tanked and my husband is losing his job in ten days and I'm splitting my time between two counties and going in to work on a snow day and all that stuff, I still have it pretty good. At least I have a job, even if it is an hour from my house. At least I can stay with my parents up there so I don't have to commute that hour's drive every day. At least my husband will get a few weeks of severance pay so he can study for his math exam. And, most important, my kids are healthy. When they're driving me crazy and I really need a break from them I need to stop and just be grateful for them--hyperactivity and all.

We were right in the middle of the show and a commercial for St. Jude's Children's Hospital came on. Jennifer Aniston (who is way too pretty to be the same age as me, BTW) was hugging a little bald-headed girl who has been battling brain cancer. Here's this cute little girl, fighting for her life, and I'm fussing at my kids for getting mud and snow on the carpet.

Wow, I have nothing to complain about.

Lily's latest photos

Eleven is going on a field trip tomorrow to J.A. Biztown. This is a great program in which kids get to interview and train to do real-life jobs. Eleven desperately wanted to be a photographer, but since he's such a math genius he was chosen to be a bank teller. He was a little bummed about it, so I told him he could have my old camera and take pictures whenever he wants.

His favorite subject is our dog Lily. Since Lily's status has been recently upgraded to Couch Dog, this creates many a photo op for our budding young Peter Parker. He had a blast today taking pictures of her sound asleep with her head hanging upside-down off the couch. He took some of them upside down so that Lily's face looks right-side up when she's hanging. They're SO funny! See for yourself...

Eight--the tattle-tale

Eight is the Star of the Week in his second grade class, a fact which he has not let us forget since the minute he found out last week that his turn in the spotlight was approaching. He loves being the center of attention. I can't imagine where he gets that from.

Ever since last Monday afternoon, Eight has been planning this week. He started working on his poster about five minutes after he was dismissed from school and started selecting photographs to share with the class. By Tuesday night he had each day planned out: the Guessing Jar, the Surprise Box, the snack he'd share with his friends, the book he'd read to them...everything. The boy was SO unbelievably excited. One might even call him obsessed.

Today was the Surprise Box day. He got to take a box to school and the class had to guess what was in it. He filled it with his "puppets." These are lunch bag puppets that he makes with markers and decorates to look like characters from Star Wars (or members of his family). He only has about two hundred of them, so clearly his collection is not quite complete yet. May I just mention that the $1.99 I spent on brown paper lunch bags was the best money I ever spent. The child stays busy for HOURS!

Anyway, today he was sharing the puppets with his class. His teacher said, "That one looks kinda like a worn-out Santa." Eight looked at her and said, "Um, that one is my dad."

Poor Mrs. Jones. She said, "Oh, don't tell your daddy I said that." So, of course he did.

And of course I had to blog about it. :-)

A NO SNOW Snow Day

Well, yesterday's other shoe fell today--along with a bunch of sleet up in the hills of our county, so schools are closed. Naturally, because I was SO prepared this week. And because I had a mom scheduled to come help me. Now I'm going to spend the rest of the week trying to figure out how to get my reading centers caught up. But this, my friends, is a good problem to have.

There's not a drop of snow outside, so it's lucky I even bothered to check the news. Eleven and I just stared at the screen when they announced our county was closed. We looked at each other and I said, "Holy Cow! Are you kidding me?" Luckily I brought home my reading book so I can plan next week's literacy centers.

The kids and I are going to drink cocoa and help Grama put up her Christmas tree and just stay inside and be warm today. I was thinking about driving back to Smyrna to see my friends who still have school today, but it's awfully nice and toasty sitting here in my PJs. :-)

To my Rutherford County friends...na, na, na, na na! You ha-aave school.

:-) I'm so mature!

OCD and Me

I had a really great day at work today. In fact, today went so well I 'm sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop and wondering what's going to go wrong next. And aren't I just a little ray of sunshine?

I spent a lot of time over the Thanksgiving break trying to plan out my literacy centers and get the rotations working smoothly. I've been trying to do this since September, but I've been so bogged down with other paperwork that I haven't been able to do it. I broke down and asked some moms of kids in my class to help me out one day a week with filing, paperwork, copies, bulletin boards, and stuff like that. I've been trying to be SuperTeacher and do everything myself, but it's just not possible. Today I had a mom do all that stuff for me for about two hours, which freed me up to catch up on my reading record-keeping. What a great feeling--being CAUGHT UP!

I have another mom coming tomorrow to work on organizing my class library. I'm separating the Accelerated Reader books from the non-AR books, then dividing then into Reading Levels and genres. Everything is color-coded and neatly labeled into little plastic (also color-coded) baskets. It just makes my little OCD heart go pitter-pat. I can't even express how happy it makes me to gaze at my pretty little bookshelves and see all that tidiness going on.

Yes, I realize there's probably medication I should take for this.